


Salt and Pepper

by synonym



Category: Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: Established Relationship, Growing Old, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-21 13:38:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9551393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/synonym/pseuds/synonym
Summary: A forty-five year old Bertram Wooster is most definitely enjoying the grey hair that was beginning to take over Jeeves’ scalp and is more than miffed when Jeeves suggests dyeing it back to entirely black.





	

“I say, you are taking an exceedingly long time to choose, I mean, is there even really a contest in their regard?” I said, sliding my hand under my pillow. The chilly underneath enclosed my bare arm and the sensation sent a tingling vibration down the limb, “Shall I repeat the question in case you have forgotten over the last agonizing five minutes of silence I have endured in anticipation? I will repeat it anyway, ‘Who would you rather have in your bed; Alexander the Great or Marcus Aurelius?’ I thought I was going rather easy on you considering your previous one for me was ‘Sherlock Holmes or C. Auguste Dupin?’ which is bally well cruel as you are so obviously aware of my affinity for mystery fiction,”

I was graced with the quirk of an eyebrow and I wished to reach out and run my finger against the arch, so I did just that. Jeeves’ eyes flutter closed for a moment at my touch.

“I must admit, sir, that this game has nearly run its course,”

When he said ‘sir’ nowadays, it was accompanied with the tone of an individual saying ‘my love’ or ‘dear’. We had grown accustomed to our designated names for each other years before I finally, without much grace I’m afraid, lured him to my bed. There was the infrequent, occasional ‘love’ or ‘darling’ thrown into our private speech but it was never a necessity or a concern. Yours truly preferred the evolution of the word ‘sir’ coming from his mouth over any of those flowery terms. 

“How so?” I inquired as my hand traveled from the curve of his eyebrow to the warmth of his chest, and I idly wrapped my index finger around one of the dark curls that resided there, “Surely, I haven’t broken you with those particular figures? Is this your way of telling me that those are two are la crème de la crème for you, old chap?” I teased.

His hand covered mine that had been playing with his chest hair and carried it up to his mouth, my knuckles brushing against his lips. I cannot begin to describe the appreciation I had for his forearms. And biceps. And rather his hands, and chest, and jawline. The man, in summation, might as well have been a greek god and although it had been many, many years since our first dalliance together, I still had no concept of how I managed to catch his eye in the first place. 

“No,” He murmured against my skin, “I simply have no desire to continue imagining anyone in my bed other than you and I am growing less and less fond of the knowledge that you are picturing anyone else but my person in yours,” 

He had this extraordinary ability to make my heart flutter after decades and I had yet to find a way to guard myself against it, “Are you saying you wouldn’t trade me in if the most handsome chap in England threw himself at your feet?”

“That is the most illogical sentence you have ever uttered, sir,” His eyes crinkled around the edges as he looked at me then, “as I already have the most beautiful man in England.”

I couldn’t contain myself as I moved our hands away from his lips and replaced them with my mouth. His other hand weaved itself into the back of my hair and I could taste the slight cigarette smoke of the one we had shared just hours before. I had an embarrassing habit that had spanned years where I could not, for the life of this Wooster, desist from pressing myself as close to him as humanly possible when I kissed him. There was something infinitely pleasing about having every single body part of mine mirroring or touching his as our lips did the same. He had said many a time that it was an endearing trait but it still remained a rather face-flushing reaction of mine. 

“However, should I not be the particular individual concerned in this instance as you are the creator of this game to begin with, sir?” His voice rumbled after we had broke apart and began a journey down the length of my neck to my collar bone, his teeth creating small pleasurable marks in its wake, “Moreover, do not think that the distinct reaction in your pupils to a specific fictional detective was lost on me,” 

I will admit, my face had flared with a pink tint at his comment. I felt his eyes flicker up to my face as he had reached my navel, and he made a very distinct, visible mark in response to what he saw. 

“What rot, fictional characters are not a threat to our reality,”

“Fictional or not, I do not want you thinking of anyone having you but me,” He almost, very nearly growled the words and I was immensely grateful for the sheets covering the twitch that occurred below my hip bones. 

“I could not possibly think of anyone but you, Jeeves,” And I meant it, with a smile. He seemed to soften slightly at the statement which I cannot possibly fathom why he was so taken with me when he could have quite literally anyone he ever wanted. That is not to say that I don’t thank the heavens, honestly I would thank god’s blasted daisy chain if I had to, everyday that I was the lucky fellow he was dippy about, but it did remained my greatest personal mystery. 

He moved off the bed and my eyes followed the view with a keen interest. He was older now, we both were, but he remained captivating and otherworldly just the same, if not more so. He glanced back at me and slightly cocked his head to the side with a subtle peaked interest, I could tell, in my facial expression.

“Tell me what you are thinking,” He said. 

“You look ravishing, old thing,” I said languidly. The corners of his mouth twitched in response which in return caused me to break out into a ridiculous grin. I loved when he smiled, there were only a handful of times I had seen a full smile grace his features, but he was the kind of man where the smallest of smiles meant a great deal and I adored them with every fibre of my being. 

“Emphasis on old, sir,”

“Psshaw, Jeeves, that is hardly a matter to be concerned with,” I retorted with my hand holding up my noggin in a near suggestive looking manner, “We have both aged, that is the whatits of life, and so on and so forth,”

“I am nearly ten years ahead of you in that respect,” I could tell he was looking in the dresser mirror but I was not at the proper angle to see the look that graced his features. 

“As you were when I was the prime age of twenty-four,”

“And you are now turning forty-six,”

“And I have never had a problem with our age differences throughout the years, and neither have you, I can safely assume due to the fact that you have been buggering me for the past seventeen of them,” I said fiercely and he seemed almost taken aback by my choice of wording, I could tell by the slight shift in his posture. The world was certainly changing but I had never really taken to swearing or anything really ungentleman-like. Code of the Woosters, and all that.

“Indeed, sir,” He shimmied off into the lavatory and I was left deciphering his tone and the infamous stuffed frog look. The stuffed frog look had many connotations and it was always a gamble to figure out which one was being used at any given time. On most occasions it was used as a means to conceal annoyance, whether it be a rather loud and obnoxious article of clothing I had purchased or a new musical instrument I had taken a fancy to, but there were other, more infrequent, times where it was a method of hiding some emotion he did not want to burden me with.

When he returned, I was squinting at him with as much force as a person could put into squinting at another individual. I could immediately tell he noticed the look, it was quite an obvious look, and began folding a rumpled shirt that had been thrown over the chair that sat beside the large armoire, in the nude I might add. Although it was an extremely gratifying view and I was wholeheartedly engaged in the movement of his bare arms and, of course, everything else, I refused to back down on my squinting gaze.

“I have been considering dyeing my hair black,” He said after a long moment and I shot up from my lounging position.

“Absolutely not,” I snapped in response.

His eyes narrowed at my knee jerk reaction, “It would make me appear closer to your approximate age, sir.”

“No,” I repeated, “You are not dyeing your hair, Jeeves.”

His hair had over the last few years, slowly been shifting into a wonderful combination of grey, white and black, it was ever-changing and a mesmerizing phenomenon for this Wooster. It was like parts of him that, in some strange, unrelated way were solely privy to me at least in some places and the thought of him replacing that with some synthetic, forced version of what it used to be felt soul-wrenching. 

“I hardly see how my hair currently is anything to be desired,” There was a steely hint in his tone and his face was schooled into a neutral expression. I felt an unpleasant dropping sensation in my stomach.

“Jeeves, please come here,” He remained folding clothes in his corner without a even a glance in my direction.

“Reginald, please,” I hardly ever used his given name. I have always had a soft spot for it, but I had rather romanticized it in the sense I never wanted to overuse it. It was saved for special or serious occasions, this falling into the latter category, “Please come over here this instant.”

The schooled expression seemed to melt in seconds and he shimmied over, sitting down beside me on our bed. I felt an aching sensation in my chest that I was far too far away from him and climbed upon his lap, facing him with my arms sliding around his shoulders, both legs on either side of him. He instinctively placed his hands, in a secure and protective kind of fashion, on both sides of my hips.

“I like you, Jeeves, as you are, I love every hair on your head and they are mine in a way because you are and I don’t want the younger you because the younger you already had the younger me and now we are older, together, and this me that you have straddled in your lap wants this you, the present you, nothing more or less, and even when we are frail and our skin is sagging, I shall want you as you are then because that is my you, it is mine and I do not wish to have anything other than what your body gives me in this very moment,” I said with my fingers among his locks of salt and peppered hair, “These are mine,” I pressed my lips to the corner of his jaw, “This is mine,” I felt his hands wrap tighter around my torso, “You are mine.”

“You are the most incorrigible man I have ever met, if you will permit me saying so, sir,” His head was buried in my chest, but I could hear the affection in the tone of his voice. 

“You can say anything you bally well like just please do not deprive me of you, in any possible way, I couldn’t bear it, really,” 

“Say it again,” He muttered softly and I could feel the light exhales of his breath against my skin. 

“Say what? The whole thing?” I responded, “I say, it was rather a long winded speech in the heat of the mo, I hardly think I could get it word for word without error,”

“No, just the last sentence, Bertram,” He raised his head, his eyes soft and unguarded. Given names, if used just rarely enough, create the perfect and heart soaring moment. I let my mouth softly rest against his, touching but not pressing. I couldn’t hold back the smile that was bursting from inside my chest.

“You are mine, old thing. Incandescently, irrefutably mine.”


End file.
